That was a bit of a Greg overload. Have you seen that south park where they go to planet Marklar? There everybody, everything and every event is called Marklar; I feel we are drifting towards this template.

I spent several hours last night building spacecraft, only to see them get blown to pieces or abandoning them in space with no fuel, orbiting Earth forever.

So, after about 10+ tries in an attempt to get a ship into a stable orbit, whilst still having some fuel left I finally achieved it. It was a moment of wonder, joy and happiness that I can safely say is the greatest single achievement of my whole life. As such, I have uploaded a picture of the wonderful moment. "Fat Boy" was the name of the craft. You may also see another one in the screenshot - that one unfortunately has no fuel and is doomed to spend the rest of his days circling Earth.

Must say I really enjoy this game. It may be far from finished and have a number of little bugs which make it quite annoying, but it is fun, and unique in a way not many games manage these days.

Been putting together a 'cheatcheet', both for my own memory and to help others. I will add to this when I learn more. If I get anything wrong, or you have an additional tip, better description then please post away!

Cheatsheet

ProgradeIndicates the spacecraft's current trajectory (forwards). This is shown by a circle with 3 lines and a dot in the middle. Prograde will make your orbit bigger and achieves orbit. "Burning prograde" will raise your apoapsis (highest point of orbit). Most burns will have the most effect at the opposite end of the orbit.

RetrogradeIndicates the spacecraft's reverse trajectory (backwards). This is shown by a circle with 3 lines and a "x" in the middle. Retrograde will make your orbit smaller and achieves landing. "Burning retrograde" will lower your apoapsis (highest point of orbit). Most burns will have the most effect at the opposite end of the orbit.

Apoapsis (AP)The point where the distance between an orbiting object and the body it is orbiting around is greatest.

Periapsis (PE)The point where the distance between an orbiting object and the body it is orbiting around is least.

Delta-VThe cumulative change in velocity required to perform a manoeuvre. This is expressed in metres per second. Essentially it's a guide for how much fuel you need.

Asparagus StagingThe idea is that you create a rocket with a lot of parallel rocket engines with fuel tanks on top of them. All engines ignite at the same time. The trick, however, is that each rocket engine isn't depleting its own tank, but they are all draining their fuel from the two outmost tanks. When these are depleted, the outmost tanks with their engines are decoupled and the next fuel tank takes over which is still completely full. The result is that the rocket always flies with the minimum number of tanks required to transport the fuel it has left while also constantly using all engines it has on board. Detailed description here.

I found some designs for an orbital fuel station, practiced docking (which is a pain in the ass) then launched all my equipment in stages and reassembled in orbit. This was time consuming but it made subsequent missions easier.